PaleoDex → Features → FossilRun
FossilRun
The dig game. Every find is real.
FossilRun is the excavation game inside PaleoDex. The game radar is always active — it tracks dig sites in real time and warms as you approach one. Once you're close enough, a timing-ring mechanic lets you excavate the specimen. Every species that surfaces is a real, documented genus drawn from the fossil record.
The detector
The FossilRun radar is a sweeping gauge that runs continuously while you play. It speeds up and changes color — blue, teal, green, amber — as you move closer to a buried dig site. You navigate by reading the detector: warmer means closer. This mechanic is separate from the exploration Radar on the world map.
- Always on. You don't open or activate the detector — it's running from the moment you enter FossilRun.
- Real dig sites. The sites the detector points to are based on actual fossil occurrence locations from the Paleobiology Database.
- Hazards. In the Badlands biome, sandstorms push you off course and muffle the detector signal.
Excavation
When you've located a site, the timing-ring excavation begins. A ring moves across the gauge — tap at the right moment to land in the sweet-spot. Accuracy determines the specimen's condition.
- Condition tiers: Perfect → Good → Chipped → Fragmented → Shattered.
- Every reveal is a real species. FossilRun only spawns genera that have genuine photographs in the database — no silhouettes, no placeholders.
Biomes
FossilRun takes place across four biomes, each tied to a real geological formation and period.
- Badlands — Hell Creek Formation, Late Cretaceous. T. rex, Triceratops, and contemporaries.
- Inland Sea — Western Interior Seaway, Cretaceous. Mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, ammonites.
- Coal Forest — Carboniferous. Lycopod forests, giant insects, early tetrapods.
- Ice Age Plains — Pleistocene. Mammoths, ground sloths, sabre-toothed cats.
Progression
Excavating earns Fragments (❖), the in-game currency. Spend them on five field-kit upgrades: detector range, pick durability, mapping grid, steady hand, and speed. Your Collection Rank advances based on the size, quality, and rarity of your museum.